Typically, commercial processes for making lead bullets employ an extrusion process to form a continuous ribbon of lead which can then be cut off into individual pieces which pieces are then swaged to form bullets. Machines for performing the typical commercial process are quite expensive, and they require several handling steps of the lead throughout the process. This extra handling further adds to the cost of manufacture of the bullets. This typical process results in what are known as soft bullets.
Because soft bullets leave lead deposits in the barrel of the gun, hard bullets are preferred over the soft bullets. However, hard bullets must be produced by a cast process in which molten lead is poured into molds and allowed to solidify. Such processes are relatively slow, and bullets produced by the casting process are therefore more expensive.
There is therefore a need for a process and a machine which can produce hard bullets at a rate comparable to the commercially typical commercial extrusion process and at a competitive cost.